Many long to be the special student — the one who stands out in class, who chats with the teacher about the meaning of life. Patrick Browning was a 15-year-old eighth grader when he became Michelle Kuo’s special student.

"Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship" begins in 2004 when Kuo, newly graduated from Harvard College, arrives in rural Arkansas as an idealistic Teach for America volunteer. Her mission was to teach English at an alternative public school “incongruously named ‘Stars,’ which the local administration used as a dumping ground for the so-called bad kids.”

Kuo’s personal goal was to impart some of her love of literature to her students, nearly all of whom didn’t have many, if any, books of their own. In chapters of the same name, she explains how she used surprising forms of literature — like the play "A Raisin in the Sun" and free-written poetry — to get through to her students and allow them to express themselves.

Despite her successes in the classroom, and her growing affection for this largely forgotten part of the country, after two years Kuo heads back to Harvard for law school. She does so partly to please her immigrant parents, who raised her in Kalamazoo, Michigan, after emigrating from Taiwan.

"Reading with Patrick" is as much about growing up Asian in America as it is about growing up black and impoverished, and the former is tied to the immigrant experience. Kuo describes a complex relationship with her parents. After they visit her in Arkansas and are shocked to learn she is considering staying past her two-year commitment, she reflects: “They didn’t read to me, because they were afraid I would adopt their accents. They cared so little for their own histories that they didn’t make me learn their native tongue. For them the price of immigration had always been that their children would discount them.”

After law school Kuo finds she can’t quite stay away from Arkansas, especially after she learns that Patrick is incarcerated on a murder charge. She goes down South to visit him in prison and feels compelled to put a hold on a legal fellowship in California and finish “teaching” Patrick, who has largely forgotten how to read and write while in jail. While Patrick is central to the narrative, at times he is hazy as a person. For example, more than halfway through we suddenly learn that he has an infant daughter.

In the end, this is really Kuo’s story. Her story is exceptional — both in content and in the writing of it — and shows that we shouldn’t just want to be the special students, we should also strive to be the special teacher as well.